The Chris Langam child pornography case.

I've been following something of the case against actor Chris Langham in recent weeks, and I do have some sympathy for the man. I can't help wondering if some terrible miscarriage of justice has just occurred.

This is my most recent response in the Guardian's blog entitled "Chris Langham's career is most definitely over":

Purchasing "Mein Kampfe" in Germany is illegal. Do you really think it stops people from becoming nazis? Do you really think that any German who goes to Britain and buys a copy must be a nazi, or is supporting the nazi cause?

If I buy drugs from a dealer, that's different, because I do support the chain of evil that goes back to the source, and what can I do with the drugs themselves other than use them?

Something like pornography is different from drugs, as the product itself is evidence, rather than an actual thing or event itself. At the end of the day, pornography is only pixels on a screen, or blobs of pigment on paper - just as is any other imagery. If I have a penchant for the macabre or sadism, I may well have a penchant for macabre of sadistic imagery. The fact I might have seen macabre or sadistic imagery isn't evidence that I'm a sadist, though - any more than owning Mein Kampfe means I'm a nazi.

What good might come from this case, though, is perhaps the whole subject might now come out into the light, rather than being brushed under the carpet by the "mustn't look at reality" policy.

I can certainly believe that any person who's suffered such abuse as a child would want to find some way to understand what happened, though. And I can certainly see that they might want to do something like look at images of such abuse. After all, it's been their reality, too, hasn't it?

There are some interesting books on the topic of why abusers abuse, and even on the motivation for sex offenders and even serial killers. Commonly, it's because they seek some kind of affinity with others.

We should consider ourselves lucky to have never suffered such appalling abuse in childhood. I think it might then give us some kind of understanding, at least, of what motivates actual paedophiles, let alone those who simply witness such barbaric acts of brutality in photos.